OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction to OS
Lets understand OS from a real life example -> Imagine an example of a restaurant
Now the restraunt has waiter, customers and restraunt manager
Customer (User) orders food → Requests a task (e.g., opening an app).
Waiter (OS) takes the order → Acts as an intermediary.
Waiter delivers the order to the kitchen (CPU) → Sends the request for processing.
Chef (CPU) prepares the food → Executes the task.
Waiter serves the food to the customer → Returns the processed output.
Waiter manages multiple customers efficiently → Handles multitasking and resource allocation.
The waiter (OS) acts as a middleman between the customer (user) and the kitchen (CPU), ensuring
smooth communication and efficient service
An Operating System (OS) is like the waiter of a restaurant that ensures everything runs smoothly
between customers, chefs, and manager.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction to OS
What is an Operating system?
An Operating System (OS) is the fundamental software that manages hardware and software resources
on a computer. It acts as an intermediary between users and the computer hardware, ensuring that all
applications run smoothly and that resources like CPU, memory, and storage are allocated efficiently.
It provides an environment where applications can run and users can interact with the computer.
Example of OS : Windows, Android and iOS, Linux, macOS
Scenario where OS is used : When a user clicks "Save" in a word processor, the application issues a
system call to the OS to write data to the hard drive
OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction to OS
user user user .................................... user user user user .................................... user
1 2 3 n 1 2 3 n
Text editor web browser Text editor web browser
System and Application programs System and Application programs
Operating system
Hardware Hardware
(CPU, Memory, I/O devices) (CPU, Memory, I/O devices)
Users must control hardware manually, (programming) Provides a GUI to interact with applications and
Only dedicated programs can run, no multitasking files easily.
For any small task user needs to interact to hardware Allows running multiple applications
directly using coding like loading, saving etc Manages CPU, memory, and storage to optimize
It can also lead to improper resource and memory performance
utilisation as you have to tell the hardware explicility to
allocate memory
OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction to OS
System software : It help to manage and operate the computer hardware so that other software can
function.
Ex : Compiler (Convert high-level code to machine language), Operating Systems (OS) , Utility
Software(Antivirus software which perform specific tasks related to system maintenance and optimization)
Application software : It is designed to perform specific tasks for users. It runs on top of the system software
and interacts with it to carry out its functions.
Ex : Word Processor(Used for writing and editing documents.)
-> System software is essential for the computer to function, while application software provides tools for
specific tasks.
-> System software typically comes pre-installed with the computer, while application software is usually
installed separately.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Relationship between a computer's hardware components, its operating system
and the application packages
user user user .................................... user User interacts with the
1 2 n web apps/browser
3
Text editor web browser Application requests for
System and Application programs some hardware resource
to OS
Operating system
Operating system
interacts with multiple
Hardware
hardware device for
(CPU, Memory, I/O devices)
resource allocation
OPERATING SYSTEM
Let’s understand OS from an example of “Saving a Document”
user user user .................................... user
n
User Interaction: The user interacts with the application (Text editor) and 1 2 3
requests to save the document. Text
editor
System and Application programs
Operating system
Application-OS Interaction: The application sends a system call to the Hardware
operating system to request writing the document to the storage device (CPU, RAM, I/O devices)
OS-Hardware Interaction: The OS communicates with the hardware
through the file system and storage device drivers to physically write the
data to the storage medium.
Hardware: The hardware performs the actual writing of data to the disk.
